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Dear Father Angelo,
I would like to ask you if it is necessary to pray for those who do not believe or, as someone says, is faith a gift that God gave us?
Thank-you very much, father, and I remember you in my prayer.


Priest’s answer

Dear friend,
1. Sacred Scripture says: “Whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4,20).
If you see a brother who is suffering in his body and you take care of him, why not do the same when you see him suffering, or even dead in his soul?

2. It is true that faith, being a knowledge of a supernatural order, cannot be acquired by one’s own natural efforts, but is a gift from God.
However God gives everyone faith because he “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tm 2,4).

3. If someone has no faith there must have been some sort of impediment that prevented him from receiving this light that illuminates the path of existence and orients it to God.

4. It is not important at this moment to examine the nature of such  impediment and whose fault it may be. The fact of the matter is that some people are not orienting their life to God, towards eternal life.

5. Saint Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers, also known as Dominicans, could find no peace thinking of these people and stayed in the church all night to pray and do penance for them. They would hear him groan and plead at the thought of their end.  He insistently asked that they receive the grace of conversion.  And to reinforce his prayer he flogged himself for them, as he also did for himself and for the souls of Purgatory.
He spent all night in the church and when he crashed he lay asleep on an altar step imitating the patriarch Jacob who lay his head on a stone.

6. Saint Thomas comments one of the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who mourn”, saying that it is not sufficient to do no evil, but we must also mourn for our sins and those of the others.
Speaking about the necessity to pray for the sins of the others he observes that if we have sick people in our home, we suffer with them.  If they then die, we mourn their loss. Thus we must equally mourn and pray for those whose spiritual life is ill and much more for those who are dead, because they are spiritually separated from the mystical body of Christ.

7. Caring for the return to the faith of those who lost it or never found it is one of the most exquisite forms of charity.
Before even starting to talk to them about Jesus Christ it is necessary to undertake an intense secret work of prayer and sacrifice to help remove what prevents the light of God from entering their hearts.
That is what Saint Therese of the Child Jesus used to do.  She left us this beautiful testimony in her book The story of a soul : “Verily in prayer and sacrifice lies all my strength, they are my invincible arms; experience has taught me that they touch hearts far more easily than words“ (The story of a soul – Chapter X – The way of Love).

Wishing you to handle these arms well, I bless you and I remember you in my prayer.
Father Angelo